Danny Willett and Matt Fitzpatrick fail to make up ground at DP World Tour Championship

The Sheffield pair are both well placed for a decent finish as the closing event of the European Tour season in Dubai.

But Willett and Fitzpatrick sit nine and ten shots off the lead respectively heading into Saturday’s third round.

Willett carded a level par 72 to remain on -3 in his bid to win the tournament for a second successive year.

And Fitzpatrick, who needs to win to have any chance of claiming the status as the season’s top player, carded a second consecutive 71 to move to -2.

It was simply not enough for either man to push up the leaderboard with France’s Mike Lorenzo-Vera following up his opening round 63 with a three under par 69 to move to -12, giving him a three shot advantage of Jon Rahm and Tommy Fleetwood.

As things stand Fleetwood would finish atop the Race To Dubai rankings, overtaking Bernd Wiesberger who sits alongside Willett in a tie for 13th.

Among the numerous possible scenarios, Fleetwood can finish top of the money list for the second time in three years if he finishes outright second, with Wiesberger finishing lower than tied third with two others and neither Rahm or Open champion Shane Lowry winning the event.

"It's just a classic case, really, of trying to stay in the moment and each shot as it comes," Fleetwood said. "There's a lot going on over the weekend. There's a lot of different scenarios and players in the mix.

"There's a lot of things going on around you, so the more internally focused you can be and the more you can just stay in your bubble, it will just be a great challenge going into the weekend trying to do that."